My good — and most generous — friend Bobbie is going away for a couple of weeks, and she’s lent me her HandiQuilter Sweet Sixteen long-arm quilting machine to try out. How amazing is that? I’m really interested in one of these machines, but couldn’t visualise if or how it would fit in my sewing room. I went to Bobbie’s house on Monday to ‘play’ on her machine and that’s when she offered to lend hers to me to really give it a run and see if I like it (it’s a big expense…).
So here’s Bobbie’s Queenie (I call it ‘The Beast’) in my sewing room. I got it set up last night and quilted two more blocks on one of the quilts I made at the Eleanor Burns Quilting Academy last month. And my free motion quilting is improving by leaps and bounds with this machine (plus all the doodling I’ve been doing).
Update: I’ve now ordered my own ‘Beast’ and I pick it up at the end of April. Can’t wait!
Click on a small image to see it full size.
I’ve still got to figure out where the ironing board that was on that wall is going to go! 😉
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 
Ironing board shmironing board …
Agree, Kirsty — for clothes! But when you’re making quilts or many fabric things, ironing is essential. Otherwise you get bulky seams and joins and ‘soft’ edges.
Fantastic! What a great friend. And how serendipitous that you can use this!
Hope all is going well Rhonda. You are so very talented!
[…] borders, the batting, and the very bright backing fabric, then spent many many hours (about 10?) free motion quilting it on a HQ Sweet Sixteen. I found that flame motifs worked well in the square blocks, and so did several blocks with flame […]
[…] at the Eleanor Burns Quilting Academy in March, and after really putting it through its paces when a friend lent me hers, I’ve now purchased my own […]
[…] Quilter Sweet Sixteen machine at the Eleanor Burns Quilting Academy in California, and after my most generous friend Bobbie lent me hers for two weeks. I actually did all the quilting on it using Bobbie’s machine, then bought my […]
[…] She was going away for two weeks so generously lent me her ‘Queenie’ while she was away (https://sandgroper14.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/testing-the-beast/). Oh boy! That did it. In that 2 weeks, I quilted about three UFOs I had, including one where I […]
[…] She was going away for two weeks so generously lent me her ‘Queenie’ while she was away (https://rhondabracey.com/2011/04/07/testing-the-beast/). Oh boy! That did it. In that 2 weeks, I quilted about three UFOs I had, including one where I […]